Some suggestions please

[Winston Kinch]

Easy to say, not necessarily to do, but since you're dealing with the President, try to get approval to Go off campus if more than 400 accept the invitation (how likely is this by the way?). And set a deadline for signing up for the event which is hopefully copacetic with the cancellation policy of your backup (bigger) off-campus site.

Winston  

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Gilbert Brenson-Lazan 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 3:05 PM
  Subject: Some suggestions please


  Hi, all:

  Even though I have not contributed much to the OSLIST, due to commitments
  as moderator of several other lists y my collegial and profesional
  responsabilities, I am an avid reader and learner from this important
  cyberspace.

  Since there is no OSonOS in the next few days to help me with a big
  challenge I am facing, as it did a few years ago en Monterey, I am turning
  to the collective wisdom and experience of you all.

  I  have been doing OS and training facilitators to do it for several years
  now, not just in companies but also in community development and disaster
  intervention.  Now I feel almost like a victim of the success we have
  shared with this approch and have been approached by a very desperate
  university president.

  It is perhaps the most important and prestigious agriculture school in
  Latin America.  They have just had a BIG structural shakeup over their
  up-until-now famous autocratic style.  The 800 members of the student body
  are chomping at the bit to make the student affairs policies more
  participatory and relevant and the newer members of the faculty (yes, there
  is a BIG generation gap both in the faculty and the administration) are in
  agreement. Others are very fearful of the loss of absolute, hierarchical
  power;  some of them realize it and some of them don´t.  A very strong and
  influential alumni association also mirrors the same dynamic.  They have
  all spent more than two years "diagnosing" all the problems and now want to
  do something.

  I have been called in as a consult to recommend changes, a role which I
  immediately challenged, choosing instead to offer a startup with an a
  one-day OS process with students, teachers and administrators all together,
  to explore feasible strategies to make the processes por participative in
  the school.  I will then do a program of training and mentoring of the
  internal facilitators (grad students) of the school to keep the ball
  rolling.  With fear and trembling, the powers that be have accepted this
  approach.

  My question is on logistics:  There are six, 130-student residences which
  are microcosms of the school (the students live on a gorgeous 2000 acre
  campus).   There is no facility big enough to put all 900 (students, profs
  and admins) together.  Maximum
  meeting capacity would be 400.  I originally thought of choosing a critical
  mass of 300-400 for the OS but the main sponsor and supporter of the
  program would like to be able to close down the university that day and
  invite ALL those that want to participate.

  My only idea so far is to organize mini-OSs  in each of the Residences.  My
  colleagues and I would do the intro with two groups of 400 and then they
  would go to their respective residences to do their OS thing, with the
  support of a couple of previously-prepared facilitators to be on hand if
  needed  (I know that isn´t very kosher OS but in Latin America I have found
  it to be an excellent strategy).  Then they would return at the end of the
  day (also in two groups) to share results and form a followup
  commision.  Everybody would get everybody´s results.

  What bright ideas do you all  have?  Any Spanish-speaking OSers out there
  that want to help?

  Thanks a million.

  Warm regards,

  Gil


        **************************************
       AMAUTA INTERNATIONAL, LLC
    Gilbert Brenson-Lazan - Socio-Gerente
     Tel: (+57-1) 345-2724 - Fax: 345-2072
  U.S. Voice Mail and Fax: (206) 888-4386
            e-mail: <gbl at amauta.org>
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